Compost is a great tool for any gardener. It helps your
garden hold just the right amount of water, makes it the right texture
for plant growth, and provides it with beneficial natural organisms.
While you can buy this type of product at the store, it’s cheaper to
make it yourself. You also get the added benefit of knowing that you’re
not just throwing your yard waste away; it’s actually doing
something beneficial.
Before getting started on your compost pile, you should know what to put
in it. To get good compost you need carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, and water.
Grass clippings from your yard provide carbon, and nitrogen comes from
leaves in the fall. To make sure your pile gets water, build it
somewhere where it will be rained on; just be sure it’s not completely
soaked with water. Lastly, you can add oxygen simply by mixing the pile.
If you can’t provide enough nitrogen or carbon to your compost pile, you
can always add a little fertilizer. The type will depend on what
nutrient you’re lacking.
There are two different types of compost piles you can make; the first
is a cool pile. To make a cool pile, simply throw your clippings and
leaves in the bin as they come and stir the ingredients occasionally.
This is a good option if you don’t have a lot of time to devote to
composting, but it takes about a year to get useable compost. You
shouldn’t add diseased plants or weeds to this mixture because they can
be harmful.
If you need your compost sooner than a year, you should try making a hot
compost pile. Unlike cool piles, you need to have a significant amount
of yard waste available to start a hot pile; at least 3 feet by 3 feet.
This mixture will require mixing much more often. You can mix it
anywhere from once every two weeks to once every couple of days. The
more you mix, the faster you get compost. This type of pile will kill
weed seeds and diseases because it reaches much higher temperatures
(about 160°), but may also kill beneficial bacteria.
When you compost pile no longer resembles what you put into it, it’s
ready to be used. Just mix into your soil for strong, healthy plants.
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something beneficial. 
